MILEPOSTS #1106

By Ken Brafman, Image from Ken Brafman Collection

TITLE: ACORNS: A FUNDAMENTAL FOOD: A highlight of every visit to Rock Camp in north Lake Arrowhead is an encounter with the awe-inspiring metates along the trail. The Serrano people came up to the area for thousands of years to escape the desert heat and to take advantage of the abundant wildlife and acorn crop. The Serrano women used metates, which are hollows carved out of bedrock, along with manos, or pestles, to grind their acorns and other grain, which was made into a paste. It’s estimated that 50% of the indigenous people’s diet consisted of acorns, which are no ordinary wild food. Their abundance in quantity, nourishment, and storability is incalculable to any other food, wild or not. Some say that the time and patience it takes to process and enjoy this natural food is quite reflective of the spirit of oak tree itself. A large majority of North America was an oak-dominant forest when European settlers first arrived. This wasn’t just by accident; indigenous people managed these ecosystems in this way with intention. Oaks allowed native people as well as settlers to have access to an extremely nourishing food source. Acorns are a complete protein, containing all the amino acids that our body can’t generate. The presence of these magnificent trees literally determined where cultures of the past would live. There are a few steps involved to process and consume your own acorns. First comes the drying, which can take weeks. Then the shells get cracked, followed by the important step of leaching, to remove the bitter tannins and to maximize the nutritional value. Hot water leaching produces the quickest results, while cold water produces a product that can be ground into flour. The Farmer’s Almanac has a comprehensive guide on the edible acorn at almanac.com/how-prepare-and-cook-acorns.

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